Last month, a funny thing happened on the way to the best-seller list. A 66-year-old treatise by a long-dead Austrian-born economist began flying off the shelves, following an hourlong endorsement from a right-wing television host better known for pumping political thrillers than for rocking political theory. Read more…

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Newly discovered letters from two great economists shed light on today's discussion of economic 'stimulus.'

The debates raging over what policies will pull the U.S. economy out of its Great Recession replicate one that occurred during the Great Depression. Thanks to the efforts of Richard Ebeling, a professor of economics at Northwood University, we have compelling and concise documentary evidence. He has unearthed letters to the Times of London from the two sides that mirror today's debates. Read more…

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With the failure of Keynesian stimulus, the late Austrian economist's ideas on state power and crony capitalism are getting a new hearing.

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A cloud looms over Adam Smith’s legacy. The 18th-century scholar is best known as an unalloyed extoller of the market and an apologist for self-interest, a reputation stemming from two centuries’ mischaracterisation of his thought. In the last 50-odd years, this interpretation has been given new credence by economists of the Chicago School (George Stigler famously described his magnum opus, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, as “a stupendous palace erected on the granite of self-interest”), by libertarian champions like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and by myriad others who associate him solely with free-market capitalism and self-interest. Read more…

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